Lainey Wilson Celebrates Opening of Career-Spanning Country Music Hall of Fame Exhibit ‘Tough as Nails’

On Thursday (July 17), the two-time ACM entertainer of the year winner Lainey Wilson celebrated the opening of her new exhibit at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, titled Lainey Wilson: Tough as Nails, which will run until June 2026.

It’s an appropriate title, showcasing the grit, ambition, work ethic and creativity that have propelled the Baskin, Louisiana native to stardom.

Just prior to the exhibit’s official opening, Wilson took a few moments with her family to look over the exhibit.

She reflected to Billboard, “It has been a team effort from the beginning, as you can tell. I mean, even when I was nine years old… we kept the Opry tickets, the Dollywood tickets. They told me, they were like, ‘We had a feeling, and because they believed, I believed. It’s just cool to be able to walk through here and look at the journey together.”

Pointing out some of the pieces in the exhibit, Wilson reflected, “I mean, even my first little cowgirl boots down there and my first saddle. I leaned a lot in the saddle, of course. I feel like I tell the kind of stories I do because I grew up as a cowgirl. There’s the picture of me in my first performance singing ‘Butterfly Kisses’ in kindergarten. You just get to see where it started, and the cool thing about it is I think I’ve got so much more story to tell.”

The exhibit showcases Wilson’s journey from Louisiana’s Franklin Parish to the country music limelight. There are dresses from her time performing in local pageants and talent competitions, and photos and even a wig from her time as a Hannah Montana impersonator. There’s the journal where a 16-year-old Wilson wrote of her dreams of becoming a country music artist, and a letter she wrote as a young fan of another Louisiana-born country singer, Tim McGraw.

Though Wilson told Billboard she has yet to really meet McGraw, she added, “He was such an influence to me, and he’s from my neck of the woods. Just looking at that letter, I see how pure it truly was and the passion I had for country music. Literally, the last sentence of that letter is, ‘All I need is the opportunity. I can do the rest.’”

Numerous CMA and ACM honors are on display, as well as her Grammy Award for best country album (for her album Whirlwind). The numerous outfits on display chronicle her style evolution and love of flares and bell bottom pants, including early skinny jeans that she attached extra, colorful fabric to in order create flared jeans. There’s the outfit she wore when she made her Grand Ole Opry debut in 2020, and the jumpsuit, hat and necklace she wore on the red carpet of the CMA Awards in 2023 — when Wilson became the first woman to win the CMA’s entertainer of the year accolade, since Taylor Swift in 2011. There are even outfits from some of her collaborators, including a jacket worn by her “Save Me” collaborator Jelly Roll and the orange prison outfit HARDY wore in the video for the Wilson-HARDY collab “Wait in the Truck.”

Later in the evening, in the rotunda at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and surrounded by bronze plaques of Country Music Hall of Fame members, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum CEO Kyle Young greeted gatherers and feted Wilson’s journey, before Wilson herself took the stage, thanking those who have been involved in her career — especially her earliest supporters, her parents.

“My mama would sit in the bathroom where the acoustics were the best, and she would listen to every lyric I ever wrote, and then I’d go play it for daddy and he would listen to the finished product and he would tap his foot if he liked it. And I knew that if he didn’t tap his foot, I needed to get back in there and work on it a little bit more,” she told the crowd. 

Speaking with Billboard before the event and thinking of some of the youngest girls in her fanbase, she hopes they take inspiration from seeing the new exhibit.

“I hope they can start at the very top, and I hope they read every little paragraph and I hope they look at everything and see that this was not a hop, skip and a jump,” she said. “I hope they can walk through here and see that it’s been a journey, but that’s what makes life so cool. It’s about learning, living, growing, and figuring out who you are along the way, and holding on to the thing that makes you, no matter where you go in lie. I hope they can just look at this and feel inspired.”